Reflections and ramblings from life in community in Birmingham city centre.

Thursday, 21 August 2014

The challenge of campaigning

Looking back over the year's photos in order to updateour community website, it looks like
going on protests has been a major part of my year. In reality, it is partly,
maybe even mostly, because those are the moments when we have taken photographs
whilst many more significant parts of my life have taken place out of camera-shot.

But there have been protests. Most recently
in Shenstone, just outside Birmingham, to show my support for the activists who
shut down an Israeli-owned factory making engines for drones by camping out on
the roof. I was not on the roof. In fact, due to a perhaps slightly
over-zealous local police force, I was not even close enough to see those who
were.

Nevertheless, I wanted to be there. I wanted
to be in that sleepy small town, outside an inoffensive looking industrial
unit, to stand in solidarity with the suffering people of Gaza; and, more
concretely to say that yes, I wanted this Israeli drones factory closed down.
To say, in fact, I want all drones factories closed down.

This protest, like the march through
Birmingham in solidarity with the people of Gaza a couple of weeks earlier
brought into sharp focus one of the challenges of joining with others to
campaign against injustice, to speak for peace. It is a challenge it is
important to be aware of and acknowledge, because by doing so, we free
ourselves to be true to what we think and believe.

I wanted to be there, to be counted among those calling
for an end to the bombing of Gaza, calling for an end to the building of
drones, calling for an end to the export of arms made here to commit atrocities
around the world. I wanted to stand with others who cared, deeply, passionately
about these issues too. But some of what was said and chanted, some of what was
thought and felt and expressed, these were not things I wanted to add my name
to.

The building of drones engines by UAV systems in
Shenstone is not ok. But to my mind, some of the views expressed by those
supposedly on the same side were also not ok.

It has, of course, a wider relevance. A choice to
associate oneself to a campaign can always subtly, or not so subtly, be twisted
into suggesting associations with other issues; or be accidentally or
deliberately misunderstood as meaning something slightly, or even completely,
different.

But perhaps because the Palestine question
provokes particularly heightened emotions, and because it is a
cause whose complexity attracts people who approach it from very different
perspectives, it was more immediately evident that whilst there was certainly
some common ground among those who felt the suffering of the people of Gaza was
unacceptable, there were also a range of views being expressed which didn't all
have either the same starting point, or the same final aims.

And thus it served as a reminder of the challenge of
every campaign: the challenge of finding common ground and solidarity with
others to build a mass movement which can effect real change, balanced against
the need to be true to the essence of my own vision and faith.

Because for me the theory, at least, is very simple
(even if putting it in to practice is infinitely complicated): To campaign for
peace is to say no to the violence that pervades every level of our society and
our world. To say no to the aggression, hostility and fear which feed our
economy and our education, our relationships with those close to us and those
far away. To campaign for peace is about much more than just an end to warfare
and weaponry (although that would be nice), it is about changing our words, our
actions, our mindsets. To campaign for peace cannot mean calling out in
vitriolic language imbued with the same violence that the drones manufacturers
espouse.

To campaign for peace and justice is to also seek those
virtues within ourselves, and, little by little, to allow them to fill our
hearts and imbue our words with a different vision.

This is what I wanted to speak for in Shenstone. If I
do so with those around me, so much the better, but even if I do so alone, I
hope I have the strength to acknowledge my differences from those by my side as
well as our shared understanding and to be true to that message, the message of
peace.